NovaNiles
5698 Reviews liked by NovaNiles
Recently, I had the pleasure of playing a lovely little indie horror game. Despite a few gameplay flaws and an occasionally meandering plot, it redeemed itself with its likeable protagonist, dark humour and gorgeous pixelized cutscenes.
And that game was... Yuppie Psycho.
Faith, on the other hand, is an exercise in mediocrity borne of gimmicks gone too far. It has a unique retro look, and the gentleman who developed it made good use of the limited colour palette.
But what it didn't need was the rest of the trappings that come with being Atari puke. Faith is slow, tedious and frustrating by design. The hero's movement speed would make a tortoise blush; his crucifix is temperamental about working on enemies at an angle. Faith isn't hard, with only one cycle of trial-and-error required for most encounters, but it's definitely cheap. Making the 'Mortis' game over screen a forced meme seems to have been the main goal here.
Almost every sound this game produces is designed to grate upon the ears. Silent Hill 3 also employed an 'assault on the senses' approach to its sound design, but it was more sincere and organic with its industrial setting, and its music was stellar. With Faith, the only bearable track is from a composer who died centuries ago. I'm surprised to see a soundtrack for the game is being offered. Who on earth is paying for a pack of dial-up modem sounds and a bitcrushed version of Moonlight Sonata?
Exploration is passable, and yet again I have to give the developer credit for making good use of the limited graphics to let players imagine the environments. The best part of the game for me definitely came from reading one of the notes while exploring. You'll know it when you see it...
Which brings us to the question, is Faith worth buying? The answer is, not at its current price point. And the reason for that is because its story simply isn't strong enough. Lord knows a horror game can achieve greatness in spite of its shit gameplay if the story is good enough - no one exactly plays Silent Hill 2 for the combat, or Clock Tower for the control scheme, or Deadly Premonition for the puzzles.
But in Faith, the staggered development of each chapter shows. They feel poorly connected, and only the first one passes muster as a self-contained narrative. An inexcusable plot hole loomed over the climax of the game for me. With its multiple endings and myriad ambiguous moments, it feels like the game was made to appeal to lore nerds - the kind who love speculating about stories that aren't even good enough to warrant the discussion.
On the technical side, I originally bought the game on Steam. Even though it was 30% off, it still felt overpriced, so I refunded it after finishing the first chapter. A big factor in this decision was the game would have an unpleasant lag every so often. I don't claim to have the most powerful gaming PC known to man, but it should be able to run a fucking Atari-looking game. A month later, when I decided to give the game a second chance for Halloween, I tried the GOG version and it didn't have the lag issue. Pity the GOG version didn't make the game itself better, though.
Faith has the look, but lacks the substance. Much of its hype was centred on its rotoscoped cutscenes, but in-game they're short and underwhelming. That's true for the entire game, really. While checking the developer's Twitter page, I came across a post complaining that indie games can't cost more than $20. With this level of quality, they better not.
And that game was... Yuppie Psycho.
Faith, on the other hand, is an exercise in mediocrity borne of gimmicks gone too far. It has a unique retro look, and the gentleman who developed it made good use of the limited colour palette.
But what it didn't need was the rest of the trappings that come with being Atari puke. Faith is slow, tedious and frustrating by design. The hero's movement speed would make a tortoise blush; his crucifix is temperamental about working on enemies at an angle. Faith isn't hard, with only one cycle of trial-and-error required for most encounters, but it's definitely cheap. Making the 'Mortis' game over screen a forced meme seems to have been the main goal here.
Almost every sound this game produces is designed to grate upon the ears. Silent Hill 3 also employed an 'assault on the senses' approach to its sound design, but it was more sincere and organic with its industrial setting, and its music was stellar. With Faith, the only bearable track is from a composer who died centuries ago. I'm surprised to see a soundtrack for the game is being offered. Who on earth is paying for a pack of dial-up modem sounds and a bitcrushed version of Moonlight Sonata?
Exploration is passable, and yet again I have to give the developer credit for making good use of the limited graphics to let players imagine the environments. The best part of the game for me definitely came from reading one of the notes while exploring. You'll know it when you see it...
Which brings us to the question, is Faith worth buying? The answer is, not at its current price point. And the reason for that is because its story simply isn't strong enough. Lord knows a horror game can achieve greatness in spite of its shit gameplay if the story is good enough - no one exactly plays Silent Hill 2 for the combat, or Clock Tower for the control scheme, or Deadly Premonition for the puzzles.
But in Faith, the staggered development of each chapter shows. They feel poorly connected, and only the first one passes muster as a self-contained narrative. An inexcusable plot hole loomed over the climax of the game for me. With its multiple endings and myriad ambiguous moments, it feels like the game was made to appeal to lore nerds - the kind who love speculating about stories that aren't even good enough to warrant the discussion.
On the technical side, I originally bought the game on Steam. Even though it was 30% off, it still felt overpriced, so I refunded it after finishing the first chapter. A big factor in this decision was the game would have an unpleasant lag every so often. I don't claim to have the most powerful gaming PC known to man, but it should be able to run a fucking Atari-looking game. A month later, when I decided to give the game a second chance for Halloween, I tried the GOG version and it didn't have the lag issue. Pity the GOG version didn't make the game itself better, though.
Faith has the look, but lacks the substance. Much of its hype was centred on its rotoscoped cutscenes, but in-game they're short and underwhelming. That's true for the entire game, really. While checking the developer's Twitter page, I came across a post complaining that indie games can't cost more than $20. With this level of quality, they better not.
Tomb Raider
1996
One of my earliest memories is being a toddler and thus too stupid to know how to double-click an .exe file. "Auntie's game," I would tell my elder sisters. "I want to play Auntie's game." I don't know why I called Lara Croft my auntie, but I did. Today we'll be reviewing Auntie's game, kids.
In fact, a lot of my childhood memories revolve around 'the real Lara Croft,' as I have to call her now to differentiate her from Square Enix's stock protagonist. At the time, Lara was a celebrity - an actual celebrity - on a level I don't think I've seen a video game character be since. Being played by the gorgeous Angelina Jolie in two feature films sure helped, but even before that, there was something about Lara's design and attitude that imbued this primitive pack of polygons with a charismatic charm. The actual plot of Tomb Raider may be somewhat thin on the ground, but it was enough to establish Lara as a badass heroine, while the game's blocky but practical, rough-hewn yet well-researched environments did the rest.
Another childhood memory I have is telling my sister, "We have half an hour before school. We can both play Tomb Raider for 15 minutes each." I was a very kind child, you see. At the time, actually beating a video game was a distant thought for me - as achievable as climbing a mountain. It's only now, 20 years later, that I've finally finished this game by myself - no walkthroughs. I feel like mentioning that because Tomb Raider is actually a pretty tough game. If you clear a risky jump, you better save. If you come to a place with branching pathways, you'd better save. If you walk a few steps without dying, you'd better make two separate save files to account for two separate universes where you fuck up by a centimetre and fall to your death. By the time I finished this game, I'd saved exactly 380 times, but by golly I finally did it. Pity the people who played through this on the PS1 version, which doesn't let you save anywhere.
Yet even if my mentality about video games changed, the principles of Tomb Raider didn't. Both when I was 4, and now when I'm 25, it was all about the joy of exploration. Tomb Raider provides this joy in spades. The platforming, the puzzle-solving and the slow yet definite resolution of a level that at first looked impossibly complex - Tomb Raider was an early champion of these elements in a 3D space. There is combat, of course, but it's merely serviceable because Lara needed something for her iconic dual pistols to shoot at.
I don't know when humanity's collective IQ dropped to the point that tank controls became too big an ask for players to grasp, because they always felt intuitive to me. That isn't to say Tomb Raider isn't unforgiving as fuck, because it is. It requires precision platforming, lateral thinking and a good deal of patience. The game is mostly fair - with only a few bullshit moments reserved for the endgame when you're already attuned to its deceptions - but it plays by its own rules, which are hard and fast.
However, I'm only saying all of this now because I've already had my love rekindled. Despite my childhood memories, there were some moments early on where I said, "Fuck this game," because Tomb Raider has aged. Its design is archaic, and its graphics are nigh prehistoric. Even with some fanmade patches that modernize the game as best as they can, there's no hiding the fact that this is very much a 1996 game.
I entreat you to give this game a fair shake in spite of this. I said the game has aged, not that it's aged badly. With enough patience - juuuust enough to let the Stockholm syndrome set in - you too can discover the joy of Tomb Raider, of its hypnotic cycle of exploring levels with sparse musical cues and only the sepulchral ambience, the thumping of footsteps and the occasional ding of a secret discovered to keep you company. And every now and then, the sound of bones breaking as Lara falls to her death for the dozenth fucking time.
Before the Tomb Raider I-III Remaster trilogy was announced, I had long given Lara up for forgotten - that the only people who would even remember the PS1 Tomb Raider games would be the ones who grew up with them, because who has the time or patience anymore? But look past its flaws, I assure you. This was a revolutionary game then, and it's still a great game now. Tomb Raider in 2024 takes the act of exploring something ancient to find a hidden treasure to a very meta level.
In fact, a lot of my childhood memories revolve around 'the real Lara Croft,' as I have to call her now to differentiate her from Square Enix's stock protagonist. At the time, Lara was a celebrity - an actual celebrity - on a level I don't think I've seen a video game character be since. Being played by the gorgeous Angelina Jolie in two feature films sure helped, but even before that, there was something about Lara's design and attitude that imbued this primitive pack of polygons with a charismatic charm. The actual plot of Tomb Raider may be somewhat thin on the ground, but it was enough to establish Lara as a badass heroine, while the game's blocky but practical, rough-hewn yet well-researched environments did the rest.
Another childhood memory I have is telling my sister, "We have half an hour before school. We can both play Tomb Raider for 15 minutes each." I was a very kind child, you see. At the time, actually beating a video game was a distant thought for me - as achievable as climbing a mountain. It's only now, 20 years later, that I've finally finished this game by myself - no walkthroughs. I feel like mentioning that because Tomb Raider is actually a pretty tough game. If you clear a risky jump, you better save. If you come to a place with branching pathways, you'd better save. If you walk a few steps without dying, you'd better make two separate save files to account for two separate universes where you fuck up by a centimetre and fall to your death. By the time I finished this game, I'd saved exactly 380 times, but by golly I finally did it. Pity the people who played through this on the PS1 version, which doesn't let you save anywhere.
Yet even if my mentality about video games changed, the principles of Tomb Raider didn't. Both when I was 4, and now when I'm 25, it was all about the joy of exploration. Tomb Raider provides this joy in spades. The platforming, the puzzle-solving and the slow yet definite resolution of a level that at first looked impossibly complex - Tomb Raider was an early champion of these elements in a 3D space. There is combat, of course, but it's merely serviceable because Lara needed something for her iconic dual pistols to shoot at.
I don't know when humanity's collective IQ dropped to the point that tank controls became too big an ask for players to grasp, because they always felt intuitive to me. That isn't to say Tomb Raider isn't unforgiving as fuck, because it is. It requires precision platforming, lateral thinking and a good deal of patience. The game is mostly fair - with only a few bullshit moments reserved for the endgame when you're already attuned to its deceptions - but it plays by its own rules, which are hard and fast.
However, I'm only saying all of this now because I've already had my love rekindled. Despite my childhood memories, there were some moments early on where I said, "Fuck this game," because Tomb Raider has aged. Its design is archaic, and its graphics are nigh prehistoric. Even with some fanmade patches that modernize the game as best as they can, there's no hiding the fact that this is very much a 1996 game.
I entreat you to give this game a fair shake in spite of this. I said the game has aged, not that it's aged badly. With enough patience - juuuust enough to let the Stockholm syndrome set in - you too can discover the joy of Tomb Raider, of its hypnotic cycle of exploring levels with sparse musical cues and only the sepulchral ambience, the thumping of footsteps and the occasional ding of a secret discovered to keep you company. And every now and then, the sound of bones breaking as Lara falls to her death for the dozenth fucking time.
Before the Tomb Raider I-III Remaster trilogy was announced, I had long given Lara up for forgotten - that the only people who would even remember the PS1 Tomb Raider games would be the ones who grew up with them, because who has the time or patience anymore? But look past its flaws, I assure you. This was a revolutionary game then, and it's still a great game now. Tomb Raider in 2024 takes the act of exploring something ancient to find a hidden treasure to a very meta level.
Dead Space 2
2011
Dead Space 2 and I go quite a ways back. My first exposure to the game was at an electronics store where it was being showcased, perhaps to prove that video game graphics had gotten as good as they ever needed to be. My child mind could hardly comprehend that the footage being played onscreen was being rendered in real-time.
Not long after, I had my second brush with the game through IGN's utterly disastrous review of it, proving once and for all that professional game journalism was a bad joke. I still wonder why Greg Miller's opening paragraph made it sound like he had lost his virginity to this game. But I digress.
It took me until 2020 to play Dead Space 2, and it truly was all it was cracked up to be. The visuals are stellar, the gameplay is refined to near-perfection, and there's never a dull moment. This is the game that Doom 3 wanted to be. The slow-paced survival horror of the first iteration has been exchanged for fast and furious necromorph-killing fun. Holy fuck this game is incredible. It controls so well, progresses so seamlessly, and never ceases to impress with its graphics and sound design. I recommend that everyone play this game once in their life.
Then why, you may ask, did I score this game lower than the original? Because I recommend everyone play it in their life just once. I wrote my Dead Space review immediately after finishing it. I'm writing my Dead Space 2 review after a second playthrough, four years removed from the first, and I've realized something.
There's nothing more in the game to do.
This is especially true of the PC version, which lacks achievements, but even if we disqualify that, Dead Space 2's lack of replay value stands in stark contrast to its inspiration - the Resident Evil series, which is infinitely replayable and has a wealth of content even after beating the campaign. There are no extras, no incentives for repeat playthroughs. There is a New Game+, but it only further trivializes the campaign. There used to be multiplayer, but to nobody's surprise, EA took the servers down. They're still charging $20 for a game that's thirteen years old though. Stay classy, EA.
My second playthrough was also marred by cracks in what at first seemed like a perfect story mode. The narrative is filled with the kind of technobabble that had me convinced I disliked sci-fi until I watched Blade Runner, and I was left scratching my head as to how some of the environments connected together. The characters are black holes of charisma (even if Isaac's voice actor has one of the best line deliveries in media history), and sometimes I wished there was a 'Shut Up mode' where the brilliant gameplay wouldn't be interrupted by the repetitive story beats. How many times is this bitch gonna freeze the controls to bleat her sci-fi jargon at me when I just want to KILL dammit?
So that's my main issue with Dead Space 2: like rice, it's best when it's fresh, and will never be as good again. That, and how dour the game is. No game that has a Havok physics engine should take itself this seriously. The Dead Space series is to Resident Evil what Marilyn Manson is to Alice Cooper: it's sleeker, heavier and more aggressive, but it's missing the campiness, subtlety and humour that has kept its inspiration bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Marilyn Manson is fat now, okay? Looks like he had one sweet dream too many.
Regardless, it would be unfair to say Dead Space 2 isn't a very good game. For the seven hours it takes to beat the first time, it's absolutely unmatched. I just wish it had held up on a repeat playthrough, or had more to do after you've finished it once. But don't deny yourself the privilege of that one time. Buy this game when it goes on sale. It'll be one of the best fivers you'll ever spend.
Not long after, I had my second brush with the game through IGN's utterly disastrous review of it, proving once and for all that professional game journalism was a bad joke. I still wonder why Greg Miller's opening paragraph made it sound like he had lost his virginity to this game. But I digress.
It took me until 2020 to play Dead Space 2, and it truly was all it was cracked up to be. The visuals are stellar, the gameplay is refined to near-perfection, and there's never a dull moment. This is the game that Doom 3 wanted to be. The slow-paced survival horror of the first iteration has been exchanged for fast and furious necromorph-killing fun. Holy fuck this game is incredible. It controls so well, progresses so seamlessly, and never ceases to impress with its graphics and sound design. I recommend that everyone play this game once in their life.
Then why, you may ask, did I score this game lower than the original? Because I recommend everyone play it in their life just once. I wrote my Dead Space review immediately after finishing it. I'm writing my Dead Space 2 review after a second playthrough, four years removed from the first, and I've realized something.
There's nothing more in the game to do.
This is especially true of the PC version, which lacks achievements, but even if we disqualify that, Dead Space 2's lack of replay value stands in stark contrast to its inspiration - the Resident Evil series, which is infinitely replayable and has a wealth of content even after beating the campaign. There are no extras, no incentives for repeat playthroughs. There is a New Game+, but it only further trivializes the campaign. There used to be multiplayer, but to nobody's surprise, EA took the servers down. They're still charging $20 for a game that's thirteen years old though. Stay classy, EA.
My second playthrough was also marred by cracks in what at first seemed like a perfect story mode. The narrative is filled with the kind of technobabble that had me convinced I disliked sci-fi until I watched Blade Runner, and I was left scratching my head as to how some of the environments connected together. The characters are black holes of charisma (even if Isaac's voice actor has one of the best line deliveries in media history), and sometimes I wished there was a 'Shut Up mode' where the brilliant gameplay wouldn't be interrupted by the repetitive story beats. How many times is this bitch gonna freeze the controls to bleat her sci-fi jargon at me when I just want to KILL dammit?
So that's my main issue with Dead Space 2: like rice, it's best when it's fresh, and will never be as good again. That, and how dour the game is. No game that has a Havok physics engine should take itself this seriously. The Dead Space series is to Resident Evil what Marilyn Manson is to Alice Cooper: it's sleeker, heavier and more aggressive, but it's missing the campiness, subtlety and humour that has kept its inspiration bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Marilyn Manson is fat now, okay? Looks like he had one sweet dream too many.
Regardless, it would be unfair to say Dead Space 2 isn't a very good game. For the seven hours it takes to beat the first time, it's absolutely unmatched. I just wish it had held up on a repeat playthrough, or had more to do after you've finished it once. But don't deny yourself the privilege of that one time. Buy this game when it goes on sale. It'll be one of the best fivers you'll ever spend.
This must be the fastest I've ever uninstalled a game in my entire life. Literally the very first frame of the game, showing someone's DeviantArt furry OC - which was supposed to be ME - made me almost vomit up the oranges I just ate. I tried, I really tried, to soldier through. But within two text boxes I had realized I was either too old, too cynical, or not as ... you know... as the typical Sonic fan to suffer through this sickly saccharine garbage. I feel violated for what I saw and what I saw was very little. This game might be free, but I don't think I could play it even if you paid me.
When I was a tiny child, so tiny I could have fit into a handbag, my mother used to drop me off at a neighbour's house when she went shopping. This neighbour, a lady stricken by vitiligo (read: that Michael Jackson skin disease), remains one of the loveliest people I have ever known. Her own children had left the nest, so she was always happy to have me over. There was always something delicious to eat, and I would get to skip tuition when I was at her house, which was a bonus.
She had about 15 cats, which was heaven for me - there were always one or two of them willing to play-hunt. I'd kick a football, they'd chase after it, and my tiny mind would register how similar these diminutive felines looked to lions falling upon deer on National Geographic.
One day the vitiligo-lady (as she will be known henceforth) pulled out a real treasure trove: a stack of books and magazines her children had compiled over the years, and she told me to take whatever I wanted home with me. I was a voracious reader at the time, and she might as well just have given me the key to the library of Babel with how big that collection was. One of the items I took on my two or three trips home that way (so I could carry everything) was a computer magazine called Spider. And in that old issue was an article that has stuck in my mind forever.
"Alice in Nightmareland," the header read. It was a feature on the 2000 classic American McGee's Alice, now one of my favourite games. It promised a dark, twisted take on Lewis Carrol's story, and while it took me a few years before I could play the game, I never forgot that article or the image of the heroine with her bloodstained apron and bigass knife. So much so, in fact, that when I watch other Alice in Wonderland media it always comes as a surprise to me that she's blonde.
It took over a decade for that game to receive a sequel, so I just wasted all your time up there talking about a game I'm not even reviewing. But cut me some slack. Let me retreat to my own Wonderland for a while, okay?
Alice: Madness Returns is, in storytelling and visuals, an utterly fantastic title. It almost transcends other forms of media in how moving its story is, how relatable its heroine, how poignant its lessons, and how satisfying its conclusion. Every environment and every model has been lovingly crafted until the creative leads had finished communicating all they had to say - not one texture in this game is without purpose. American McGee's Alice might have been a stronger game thematically, but Madness Returns has a far better narrative and - helped by both technological advances and raw passion - brings both Wonderland and Victorian London to life in all their gaudy squalor. This is a shock value tour de force. Madness Returns is not a big-budget game, costing $9 million to make in 2011, but you can see where every individual cent was spent: in making this game visually spectacular, with a killer score and award-worthy voice acting.
A pity, then, that the coffers must have been just about empty when the time came to build the gameplay. I don't mean to say that Madness Returns plays badly, but clearly the same love wasn't lavished upon the gameplay as on the presentation. The combat is wonky and repetitive, with the auto-targeting mechanic often being more hindrance than help. There are no boss fights but one, and it's exceedingly obvious they were cut for budgetary reasons. The platforming is frustrating almost as often as it is fun, helped by quick and fluid controls but marred by an uncooperative camera and ill-defined invisible walls. The puzzle-platforming segments are often quite satisfying to solve, but there were a couple I had to give up on through the course of the game, and a few that were snatched from me by poorly-timed cutscenes or level transitions - I ended up achieving 90% completion on my first run, which shows that I definitely had fun, but it makes me wish I could have gone for 100%. Though I doubt it's possible, because of one nagging issue...
Glitches. Glitches and poor performance - the PC version of this game is a far-from-ideal port. Despite its low system requirements, the game lags during action and sometimes freezes outright; crashes and poor performance plagued my entire playthrough. Turning post-processing off improved the stuttering somewhat, but it also left me feeling distinctly aggrieved. My current laptop can best be described as an old mule repurposed as a warhorse, but even with its low specs it should be able to run Alice: Madness Returns on the highest settings twice over. But it can't. I have to lower the graphic settings to make it run smoothly even once, and even then suffer through crashes. And it's not just me. People with much more powerful PCs than mine face the same issues, according to the Steam forums. They're not game-breaking, but they are a blight on one's enjoyment.
Controller support for this game always feels kind of off, as if you're playing with the WASD keys rerouted to the left stick instead of having full 360-degree control. And then there's a bug in the endgame where the game doesn't register you as having grabbed a collectible, which denies you your final health upgrade and might keep you from getting 100% completion. I don't know if other people's computers reproduce this bug, but mine did on both my playthroughs of this game - in 2020, and in 2024. Not to mention, EA are a bunch of greedy louts who disabled content that is included in the game's very own data to sell it as DLC. The evil of this publisher knows no bounds. But - psst! - you can access the DLC for this game for free by editing a configuration file. Keep it hushity hush.
Alice: Madness Returns is a game so great in its story that it makes one wonder how it would have turned out if it wasn't so flawed in its mechanics. In a perfect world, EA would be a better company and greenlight Alice: Asylum, and the gaming industry wouldn't deprived of American McGee's genius. But this is not a perfect world. So I do recommend Alice: Madness Returns for its narrative and visuals, but I also don't want you giving EA too much money for this buggy mess of a PC port. Buy it on a 75-90% sale, or sail, if you know what I mean. Wink wink nudge nudge, say no more. Nod's as good as a wink to a blind bad.
I should visit that vitiligo-lady one of these days, just so I can thank her.
She had about 15 cats, which was heaven for me - there were always one or two of them willing to play-hunt. I'd kick a football, they'd chase after it, and my tiny mind would register how similar these diminutive felines looked to lions falling upon deer on National Geographic.
One day the vitiligo-lady (as she will be known henceforth) pulled out a real treasure trove: a stack of books and magazines her children had compiled over the years, and she told me to take whatever I wanted home with me. I was a voracious reader at the time, and she might as well just have given me the key to the library of Babel with how big that collection was. One of the items I took on my two or three trips home that way (so I could carry everything) was a computer magazine called Spider. And in that old issue was an article that has stuck in my mind forever.
"Alice in Nightmareland," the header read. It was a feature on the 2000 classic American McGee's Alice, now one of my favourite games. It promised a dark, twisted take on Lewis Carrol's story, and while it took me a few years before I could play the game, I never forgot that article or the image of the heroine with her bloodstained apron and bigass knife. So much so, in fact, that when I watch other Alice in Wonderland media it always comes as a surprise to me that she's blonde.
It took over a decade for that game to receive a sequel, so I just wasted all your time up there talking about a game I'm not even reviewing. But cut me some slack. Let me retreat to my own Wonderland for a while, okay?
Alice: Madness Returns is, in storytelling and visuals, an utterly fantastic title. It almost transcends other forms of media in how moving its story is, how relatable its heroine, how poignant its lessons, and how satisfying its conclusion. Every environment and every model has been lovingly crafted until the creative leads had finished communicating all they had to say - not one texture in this game is without purpose. American McGee's Alice might have been a stronger game thematically, but Madness Returns has a far better narrative and - helped by both technological advances and raw passion - brings both Wonderland and Victorian London to life in all their gaudy squalor. This is a shock value tour de force. Madness Returns is not a big-budget game, costing $9 million to make in 2011, but you can see where every individual cent was spent: in making this game visually spectacular, with a killer score and award-worthy voice acting.
A pity, then, that the coffers must have been just about empty when the time came to build the gameplay. I don't mean to say that Madness Returns plays badly, but clearly the same love wasn't lavished upon the gameplay as on the presentation. The combat is wonky and repetitive, with the auto-targeting mechanic often being more hindrance than help. There are no boss fights but one, and it's exceedingly obvious they were cut for budgetary reasons. The platforming is frustrating almost as often as it is fun, helped by quick and fluid controls but marred by an uncooperative camera and ill-defined invisible walls. The puzzle-platforming segments are often quite satisfying to solve, but there were a couple I had to give up on through the course of the game, and a few that were snatched from me by poorly-timed cutscenes or level transitions - I ended up achieving 90% completion on my first run, which shows that I definitely had fun, but it makes me wish I could have gone for 100%. Though I doubt it's possible, because of one nagging issue...
Glitches. Glitches and poor performance - the PC version of this game is a far-from-ideal port. Despite its low system requirements, the game lags during action and sometimes freezes outright; crashes and poor performance plagued my entire playthrough. Turning post-processing off improved the stuttering somewhat, but it also left me feeling distinctly aggrieved. My current laptop can best be described as an old mule repurposed as a warhorse, but even with its low specs it should be able to run Alice: Madness Returns on the highest settings twice over. But it can't. I have to lower the graphic settings to make it run smoothly even once, and even then suffer through crashes. And it's not just me. People with much more powerful PCs than mine face the same issues, according to the Steam forums. They're not game-breaking, but they are a blight on one's enjoyment.
Controller support for this game always feels kind of off, as if you're playing with the WASD keys rerouted to the left stick instead of having full 360-degree control. And then there's a bug in the endgame where the game doesn't register you as having grabbed a collectible, which denies you your final health upgrade and might keep you from getting 100% completion. I don't know if other people's computers reproduce this bug, but mine did on both my playthroughs of this game - in 2020, and in 2024. Not to mention, EA are a bunch of greedy louts who disabled content that is included in the game's very own data to sell it as DLC. The evil of this publisher knows no bounds. But - psst! - you can access the DLC for this game for free by editing a configuration file. Keep it hushity hush.
Alice: Madness Returns is a game so great in its story that it makes one wonder how it would have turned out if it wasn't so flawed in its mechanics. In a perfect world, EA would be a better company and greenlight Alice: Asylum, and the gaming industry wouldn't deprived of American McGee's genius. But this is not a perfect world. So I do recommend Alice: Madness Returns for its narrative and visuals, but I also don't want you giving EA too much money for this buggy mess of a PC port. Buy it on a 75-90% sale, or sail, if you know what I mean. Wink wink nudge nudge, say no more. Nod's as good as a wink to a blind bad.
I should visit that vitiligo-lady one of these days, just so I can thank her.
War relativ gut, obwohl ich öfter mal in einen Walkthrough schauen musste, weil manche Karten zum Verlaufen eingeladen haben. Besonders gut fand ich die Umsetzung der Musik und das Abprallen der Laserstrahlen.
Silent Hill 3
2003
A disturbing yet emotional ride into living hell.
This is probably the 24th or 26th time I played thru this game. I just love it. It's the greatest horror game ever made and my #3 game of all time. Were to start?
Heather is arguably the closest that I would consider a "4-dimensional" character. You could make her a mute and the flavour texts alone, while clicking the X-Button to investigate on things would still give her more personality than 99% of all other video game characters. The story about her finding out about her true self and how she deals with it along with another tragic incident that is going to happen to her, is very intruging and gives alot of depth to her character.
The side characters are well written aswell, better than those of SH1 for the most part but inferior to those from SH2. The voice acting for all characters is flawless as long you play with the original voices, avoid the HD collection as far as possible.
SH3 is also pretty much the best looking game of the PS2. The only games from 6th gen that come close to it are SH2 and 4, the Resident Evil 1 Remake and Resident Evil Zero and Black. It's art design is truly magnificent. The character faces look closer to reality than most games of 7th gen.
The score once again composed by Akira Yamaoka is terrific. It's sad, moody and scary at the same time.
Now lets get into the gameplay department. It's the most polished game in the series. If you consider tank controls clunky, you might not consider them that clunky anymore after playing SH3. There is also an option to play without tank controls so there is actually no reason, not to play this game. It improved on the little things when compared to SH2, most notably the inventory. There are also plenty of unlockables like a lightsaber for example.
The level design this time offers a lot of variety even though I still consider SH1 level design the best in the franchise but this is a close 2nd.
So for all the people that just circle jerk around SH2, give SH1 and 3 a chance. You will not regret it if you love storytelling in gaming. This for sure is an underrated hidden gem and I think it's the best game in the franchise and of the survival horror genre.
10/10 puked out demon fetuses.
Check my review for the abysmal movie on Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/xgmanx/film/silent-hill-revelation-3d/
This is probably the 24th or 26th time I played thru this game. I just love it. It's the greatest horror game ever made and my #3 game of all time. Were to start?
Heather is arguably the closest that I would consider a "4-dimensional" character. You could make her a mute and the flavour texts alone, while clicking the X-Button to investigate on things would still give her more personality than 99% of all other video game characters. The story about her finding out about her true self and how she deals with it along with another tragic incident that is going to happen to her, is very intruging and gives alot of depth to her character.
The side characters are well written aswell, better than those of SH1 for the most part but inferior to those from SH2. The voice acting for all characters is flawless as long you play with the original voices, avoid the HD collection as far as possible.
SH3 is also pretty much the best looking game of the PS2. The only games from 6th gen that come close to it are SH2 and 4, the Resident Evil 1 Remake and Resident Evil Zero and Black. It's art design is truly magnificent. The character faces look closer to reality than most games of 7th gen.
The score once again composed by Akira Yamaoka is terrific. It's sad, moody and scary at the same time.
Now lets get into the gameplay department. It's the most polished game in the series. If you consider tank controls clunky, you might not consider them that clunky anymore after playing SH3. There is also an option to play without tank controls so there is actually no reason, not to play this game. It improved on the little things when compared to SH2, most notably the inventory. There are also plenty of unlockables like a lightsaber for example.
The level design this time offers a lot of variety even though I still consider SH1 level design the best in the franchise but this is a close 2nd.
So for all the people that just circle jerk around SH2, give SH1 and 3 a chance. You will not regret it if you love storytelling in gaming. This for sure is an underrated hidden gem and I think it's the best game in the franchise and of the survival horror genre.
10/10 puked out demon fetuses.
Check my review for the abysmal movie on Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/xgmanx/film/silent-hill-revelation-3d/
Silent Hill
1999
The birth of psychological horror in gaming.
If Resident Evil is an sci-fi action horror with zombies and monsters, then Silent Hill is an psychological horror arthouse drama with cults and demons. Another thing, this is in fact my favorite PS1 game.
The level design and music are the best of the series and the story is amazing aswell since it offers some great mysteries and the arguably most tragic character in gaming.
It's worth mentioning that this is also the scariest Silent Hill game and thus the scariest game ever made. It for sure has the scariest monsters in the franchise. The puzzles are also well thought out but not overly complicated. The boss fights are fine aswell. Better as in SH2 but not than SH3.
The characters are also alright with Alessa being the most interesting in it. There isn't much else to say other that it gets overshadowed way to much by it's successor.
10/10 nightmares become reality.
Check my review for the movie on Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/xgmanx/film/silent-hill/
If Resident Evil is an sci-fi action horror with zombies and monsters, then Silent Hill is an psychological horror arthouse drama with cults and demons. Another thing, this is in fact my favorite PS1 game.
The level design and music are the best of the series and the story is amazing aswell since it offers some great mysteries and the arguably most tragic character in gaming.
It's worth mentioning that this is also the scariest Silent Hill game and thus the scariest game ever made. It for sure has the scariest monsters in the franchise. The puzzles are also well thought out but not overly complicated. The boss fights are fine aswell. Better as in SH2 but not than SH3.
The characters are also alright with Alessa being the most interesting in it. There isn't much else to say other that it gets overshadowed way to much by it's successor.
10/10 nightmares become reality.
Check my review for the movie on Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/xgmanx/film/silent-hill/
Silent Hill 2
2001
Sadness, Depression and messed up psychological horror at its finest.
Silent Hill 2 is highly regarded as one of the best if not the best story in gaming for a reason, and that rightfully so. It manages to make you sad and scared at the same time with some great unexpected plot twists and lots of symbolism. Now, thats how you tell a story.
Monsters instead of symbolizing the fears and emotions of a child, are this time tied to the main character James Sunderlands inner psyche. One monster and parts of the environments also come from the psyche of some of the side characters. Speaking about side characters, SH2 might have the best written side characters along with GTA San Andreas, they literally all got their own short story to share.
The game is scary and offers terrific music. Akira Yamaoka nails it off once again. The art design looks even great for today standards despite being an early ps2 title and when played on a pc (get the enhanced edition) rivals most ps3 titles. The voice acting is also flawless, I can't imaging anyone portraying those characters any better.
The only flaw might be that the game throws you a little bit to much ammo and that SH2 unfortunately overshadows SH1 and SH3 way to much. Those games don't deserve to get so negleted.
10/10 Pyramid Heads that only belong in Silent Hill 2.
Silent Hill 2 is highly regarded as one of the best if not the best story in gaming for a reason, and that rightfully so. It manages to make you sad and scared at the same time with some great unexpected plot twists and lots of symbolism. Now, thats how you tell a story.
Monsters instead of symbolizing the fears and emotions of a child, are this time tied to the main character James Sunderlands inner psyche. One monster and parts of the environments also come from the psyche of some of the side characters. Speaking about side characters, SH2 might have the best written side characters along with GTA San Andreas, they literally all got their own short story to share.
The game is scary and offers terrific music. Akira Yamaoka nails it off once again. The art design looks even great for today standards despite being an early ps2 title and when played on a pc (get the enhanced edition) rivals most ps3 titles. The voice acting is also flawless, I can't imaging anyone portraying those characters any better.
The only flaw might be that the game throws you a little bit to much ammo and that SH2 unfortunately overshadows SH1 and SH3 way to much. Those games don't deserve to get so negleted.
10/10 Pyramid Heads that only belong in Silent Hill 2.
The Room but without Tommy Wiseau.
The black sheep of the original four Team Silent games, but is that rightfully so? Well it for sure is understandable. Henry Townsend is the definition of a dull and one dimensional character. Pretty much in contrast to Heather who is arguably the most 4-dimensional character I have ever witnessed. However SH4 has the series most interesting villain. Tommy Wisea...I mean Walter Sullivan. He sure looks like Tommy though lol.
Anyway the story about Walter and the 21 sacraments is pretty damn intruiging. The enemy design is great. Enemy sounds are pretty damn odd though, especially those burping monsters. Combat is worse yet easier at the same time. Once you got the axe you become invinvible ruining much of the horror. Imagine how dangerous those Twin Victims (one of the best and most underappreciated monsters in the franchise) would be with Silent Hill 3 gameplay and combat mechanics. The handgun is kinda like a shotgun shooting through multiple enemies sometimes.
The level design is great but I miss the radio and flashlight. The escort mission isn't as bad as in RE4 but witout it and the backtracking is something I could do without but I don't really mind it. Akira Yamaokas score is a masterclass. Room of Angels anyone?
9/10 Ghosts haunting your apartment.
The black sheep of the original four Team Silent games, but is that rightfully so? Well it for sure is understandable. Henry Townsend is the definition of a dull and one dimensional character. Pretty much in contrast to Heather who is arguably the most 4-dimensional character I have ever witnessed. However SH4 has the series most interesting villain. Tommy Wisea...I mean Walter Sullivan. He sure looks like Tommy though lol.
Anyway the story about Walter and the 21 sacraments is pretty damn intruiging. The enemy design is great. Enemy sounds are pretty damn odd though, especially those burping monsters. Combat is worse yet easier at the same time. Once you got the axe you become invinvible ruining much of the horror. Imagine how dangerous those Twin Victims (one of the best and most underappreciated monsters in the franchise) would be with Silent Hill 3 gameplay and combat mechanics. The handgun is kinda like a shotgun shooting through multiple enemies sometimes.
The level design is great but I miss the radio and flashlight. The escort mission isn't as bad as in RE4 but witout it and the backtracking is something I could do without but I don't really mind it. Akira Yamaokas score is a masterclass. Room of Angels anyone?
9/10 Ghosts haunting your apartment.
P.T.
2014
An appealing terrifying Walking Simulator advertised in the most clever way possible.
P.T. doesn't has much of a story, as a playable teaser it doesn't need one though. Where it shines is the way it got advertised. After finishing it, it turns out to be a teaser of the now not so "9th" Silent Hill game made by Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro starring Norman Reedus as the main protagonist.
It's debatable if this would have been a real Silent Hill game if it got released but it sure brought some fresh air to the franchise and finally wasn't another attempt to copy the story of Silent Hill 2. Silent Hill 4 seems to be the closest SH game when compared to P.T..
The puzzles are clever and the atmosphere is creepy as fuck. Lisa as a monster contributes a lot for the games scariness and so does that Fetus resembling the one from Davif Lynches Eraser Head, that was a shitty movie though lol.
Anyway its a shame the final game got cancelled since Kojimas take while maybe not accurate to the series still would have been interesting with it probably becoming the scariest game in the series since SH3.
8/10 cute demon fetuses.
P.T. doesn't has much of a story, as a playable teaser it doesn't need one though. Where it shines is the way it got advertised. After finishing it, it turns out to be a teaser of the now not so "9th" Silent Hill game made by Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro starring Norman Reedus as the main protagonist.
It's debatable if this would have been a real Silent Hill game if it got released but it sure brought some fresh air to the franchise and finally wasn't another attempt to copy the story of Silent Hill 2. Silent Hill 4 seems to be the closest SH game when compared to P.T..
The puzzles are clever and the atmosphere is creepy as fuck. Lisa as a monster contributes a lot for the games scariness and so does that Fetus resembling the one from Davif Lynches Eraser Head, that was a shitty movie though lol.
Anyway its a shame the final game got cancelled since Kojimas take while maybe not accurate to the series still would have been interesting with it probably becoming the scariest game in the series since SH3.
8/10 cute demon fetuses.
The Terminator story I always asked for.
This is the movie that Terminator 5 should have been, or rather yet the movie that the 3rd one should be. I always wanted to see a story about the future war and now I got it.
The game also finally made the T-800 scary again and this isn't even a horror game. The game kinda feels like a mix between Telltales TWD and Fallout with Terminator as its basis. The gaming world is dynamic and the story as said before is what a final conclusion to this franchise should have been like.
8.5/10 apocalyptic worlds with robots ruling over it.
This is the movie that Terminator 5 should have been, or rather yet the movie that the 3rd one should be. I always wanted to see a story about the future war and now I got it.
The game also finally made the T-800 scary again and this isn't even a horror game. The game kinda feels like a mix between Telltales TWD and Fallout with Terminator as its basis. The gaming world is dynamic and the story as said before is what a final conclusion to this franchise should have been like.
8.5/10 apocalyptic worlds with robots ruling over it.
Resident Evil
2014
This review contains spoilers
Resident Evil 1 Remake is a piece of Art
This review contains some spoilers. So, I have now played Chris' campaign like 12 times and the same goes for Jill which is much to little when thinking about how great this game is. It's the definition of a flawless masterpiece and deserves to be on every Top 5 video game of all-time list. Now let's start with the games design. The graphics look beautiful, you wouldn't think this game came out in 2002 and I would go so far and say that the "Remastered" release looks even better than RE5 and 6. The pre-rendered background give the game a great aesthetic look and the use of shadow and light effects is also well done. Looking at the zombie's shadow when they are knocking on a window is breathtaking when combining it with the cinematography or should I say fixed camera angles. If this would be a movie it would be a contender for film with the best cinematography of all time pretty much rivaling the likes of Halloween (1978) and Shining (1980).
The music much like the environment adds a lot to the games atmosphere and Remake has by far the best score in the franchise followed by Code Veronica. The environment is also the best in the series as it first of all had the Spencer Mansion ,which is far more original than just running around in an zombie infested city like shown in most zombie movies, and second it offers most varieties as you also visit a cabin in the woods, a forest (when just short), a tank with zombie sharks, a cave with boulders that Chris wasn't able to bunch back in 1998 and a lab.
The puzzles are also some of the greatest in the series if not the best. Just like the environment they offer a lot of variety and are very challenging but besides of that there isn't much else to say but getting the items for them is a scary fun scavenger hunt.
It's also the scariest game of the series not just for the environment but also its monsters. Crimson Heads are a nice addition to the game as it makes you think twice wether you are willing to kill a zombie with the low resources you got or not as only a head shot or a destroyed leg will kill them for good. You can burn their corpses but fuel is also very low in this game. Hunters take 3 shot gun shells to be killed and they can kill you with one instant kill attack and if you forgot to save, well then have fun playing thru the living nightmare you survived so far all over again. There is also another monster additional to the remake, but I will talk about this a bit later.
But where the game really shines is the story and its characters. I never understood why many people view movies with simple stories as simple but still good but why this does not go for RE baffles me to this day. Most of Resident Evil's story gets told by it's files and finding and reading them really makes me feel like some sort of detective that is trying to solve the mystery about the happenings in the spencer mention. And yes, mystery equals good story telling just like character development does! Reading all the files written by some of the scientists who became victims of the T-Virus outbreak makes everything about it so intriguing "Mm, itchy tasty" and I like how everything gets revealed piece by piece which will lead to the big picture about the Umbrella conspiracies. I still can't find any contradictions and story inconsistencies in this game, which is what would make a story bad objectively speaking.
So, I revealed my reasons why I love the execution of the story so much but what about the characters that carry out the story? REmake has my favorite cast of major characters. Wesker, Jill, Chris, Rebecca and Barry are all in my Top 5 RE characters list. I like the interactions between them. Chris having that big brother attitude when talking to Rebecca who is all scared and afraid as a still young and unexperienced girl (let's act that RE0 doesn't exist, ok) and member of S.T.A.R.S, she never thought she would experience something like that in her career wasn't she. You can see her sorrow when she is crying over Richards death after Chris told her she got eaten by one of the neptunes. I like how Jill and Barry always ask themselves what is going on in the mansion which combined with reading the files increases my interest to find out what happened her even more. It almost feels like I am with them....in the mansion. I wish they would still have the "Jill Sandwich" and the "master of unlocking" line from the original in the game as I can't see how this would hurt the remake. You can also see that Barry goes thru a lot as you find out Wesker is using him for his personal benefits. Speaking about Wesker. He isn't the great villain as he is in Code Veronica and Umbrella Chronicles but going back and see where it all started with him makes me appreciate him more and more. Especially after Umbrella Chronicles since this game shows more of him in the time of the mansion incident and the T-Virus outbreak. The reveal of him being the villain working as an Umbrella scientist and double agent was also done very well. For me the characters in this game feel like real people. Real people that are inexperienced with the things they are witnessing in this game and they feel especially real than compared to most video game characters from the same era that are basically super human or one man armies. And of course, there is also Lisa Trevor who has one of the most tragic back stories of all time but I don't want to spoil this. It's a great subplot, which is surprising because of stories actually suffer from sub plots more than they actually benefit from. I didn't say much about her when talking about the monsters but she is just as intimidating as the Crimson Heads and Hunters if not more in some cases.
The voice acting is pretty good for 2002 standards. Chris and Jill had actually the weakest voice actors with Barry surprisingly being the best. I wouldn't change anything from it though as it just like the gameplay and the music goes perfectly hand in hand with the story, the tension and the mysteries.
This is a no brainer but adore this game. If RE2 remake is a Hollywood blockbuster with zombies and RE4 is a campy B-Movie than REmake is pretty much an arthouse film with zombies and monsters. It's in my opinion the best game in the franchise and one of the biggest pieces of art and of course if I would give this a review score, I would give it a 10/10.
Thx for all the readers and if you for some reason still haven't played this game. Go pick it up. As a Resident Evil fan, a zombie fan, a survival horror fan or an old school gamer you won't regret it. It really baffles me how so many people still haven't picked up REmake despite it now being out for every modern system, some people, I guess.
This review contains some spoilers. So, I have now played Chris' campaign like 12 times and the same goes for Jill which is much to little when thinking about how great this game is. It's the definition of a flawless masterpiece and deserves to be on every Top 5 video game of all-time list. Now let's start with the games design. The graphics look beautiful, you wouldn't think this game came out in 2002 and I would go so far and say that the "Remastered" release looks even better than RE5 and 6. The pre-rendered background give the game a great aesthetic look and the use of shadow and light effects is also well done. Looking at the zombie's shadow when they are knocking on a window is breathtaking when combining it with the cinematography or should I say fixed camera angles. If this would be a movie it would be a contender for film with the best cinematography of all time pretty much rivaling the likes of Halloween (1978) and Shining (1980).
The music much like the environment adds a lot to the games atmosphere and Remake has by far the best score in the franchise followed by Code Veronica. The environment is also the best in the series as it first of all had the Spencer Mansion ,which is far more original than just running around in an zombie infested city like shown in most zombie movies, and second it offers most varieties as you also visit a cabin in the woods, a forest (when just short), a tank with zombie sharks, a cave with boulders that Chris wasn't able to bunch back in 1998 and a lab.
The puzzles are also some of the greatest in the series if not the best. Just like the environment they offer a lot of variety and are very challenging but besides of that there isn't much else to say but getting the items for them is a scary fun scavenger hunt.
It's also the scariest game of the series not just for the environment but also its monsters. Crimson Heads are a nice addition to the game as it makes you think twice wether you are willing to kill a zombie with the low resources you got or not as only a head shot or a destroyed leg will kill them for good. You can burn their corpses but fuel is also very low in this game. Hunters take 3 shot gun shells to be killed and they can kill you with one instant kill attack and if you forgot to save, well then have fun playing thru the living nightmare you survived so far all over again. There is also another monster additional to the remake, but I will talk about this a bit later.
But where the game really shines is the story and its characters. I never understood why many people view movies with simple stories as simple but still good but why this does not go for RE baffles me to this day. Most of Resident Evil's story gets told by it's files and finding and reading them really makes me feel like some sort of detective that is trying to solve the mystery about the happenings in the spencer mention. And yes, mystery equals good story telling just like character development does! Reading all the files written by some of the scientists who became victims of the T-Virus outbreak makes everything about it so intriguing "Mm, itchy tasty" and I like how everything gets revealed piece by piece which will lead to the big picture about the Umbrella conspiracies. I still can't find any contradictions and story inconsistencies in this game, which is what would make a story bad objectively speaking.
So, I revealed my reasons why I love the execution of the story so much but what about the characters that carry out the story? REmake has my favorite cast of major characters. Wesker, Jill, Chris, Rebecca and Barry are all in my Top 5 RE characters list. I like the interactions between them. Chris having that big brother attitude when talking to Rebecca who is all scared and afraid as a still young and unexperienced girl (let's act that RE0 doesn't exist, ok) and member of S.T.A.R.S, she never thought she would experience something like that in her career wasn't she. You can see her sorrow when she is crying over Richards death after Chris told her she got eaten by one of the neptunes. I like how Jill and Barry always ask themselves what is going on in the mansion which combined with reading the files increases my interest to find out what happened her even more. It almost feels like I am with them....in the mansion. I wish they would still have the "Jill Sandwich" and the "master of unlocking" line from the original in the game as I can't see how this would hurt the remake. You can also see that Barry goes thru a lot as you find out Wesker is using him for his personal benefits. Speaking about Wesker. He isn't the great villain as he is in Code Veronica and Umbrella Chronicles but going back and see where it all started with him makes me appreciate him more and more. Especially after Umbrella Chronicles since this game shows more of him in the time of the mansion incident and the T-Virus outbreak. The reveal of him being the villain working as an Umbrella scientist and double agent was also done very well. For me the characters in this game feel like real people. Real people that are inexperienced with the things they are witnessing in this game and they feel especially real than compared to most video game characters from the same era that are basically super human or one man armies. And of course, there is also Lisa Trevor who has one of the most tragic back stories of all time but I don't want to spoil this. It's a great subplot, which is surprising because of stories actually suffer from sub plots more than they actually benefit from. I didn't say much about her when talking about the monsters but she is just as intimidating as the Crimson Heads and Hunters if not more in some cases.
The voice acting is pretty good for 2002 standards. Chris and Jill had actually the weakest voice actors with Barry surprisingly being the best. I wouldn't change anything from it though as it just like the gameplay and the music goes perfectly hand in hand with the story, the tension and the mysteries.
This is a no brainer but adore this game. If RE2 remake is a Hollywood blockbuster with zombies and RE4 is a campy B-Movie than REmake is pretty much an arthouse film with zombies and monsters. It's in my opinion the best game in the franchise and one of the biggest pieces of art and of course if I would give this a review score, I would give it a 10/10.
Thx for all the readers and if you for some reason still haven't played this game. Go pick it up. As a Resident Evil fan, a zombie fan, a survival horror fan or an old school gamer you won't regret it. It really baffles me how so many people still haven't picked up REmake despite it now being out for every modern system, some people, I guess.
Com frequência eu encontro jogos que parecem enormes, mas ficam pequenininhos com o passar das horas. Bug Fables é o contrário: a gente começa prestando atenção na arte cartunesca, meio simplista e sem refinamento, e acaba se espantando com o tanto de coisa que dá pra fazer, com o tamanho do mundo, com a grande variedade de opções de combate, de inimigos, de habitats, itens, com o quanto a história importa e com a profundidade do lore estabelecido.
Infelizmente minha vida tá uma bagunça. Eu me enrolo demais pra fechar jogo. Na hora de voltar é um parto pra pegar as manhas. Vi que a maioria dos jogadores termina Bug Fables em 20 e poucas horas, mas tô com 40+. É verdade que o jogo te dá razão pra explorar e, ativando a medalhinha do Hard Mode, alguns inimigos viram uma questão de encontrar a estratégia certa, mas hoje me peguei inquieto, jogando sem paciência e sem vontade, e percebi que perdi o timing. Zerar esse aqui vai ficar pra outra hora.
Infelizmente minha vida tá uma bagunça. Eu me enrolo demais pra fechar jogo. Na hora de voltar é um parto pra pegar as manhas. Vi que a maioria dos jogadores termina Bug Fables em 20 e poucas horas, mas tô com 40+. É verdade que o jogo te dá razão pra explorar e, ativando a medalhinha do Hard Mode, alguns inimigos viram uma questão de encontrar a estratégia certa, mas hoje me peguei inquieto, jogando sem paciência e sem vontade, e percebi que perdi o timing. Zerar esse aqui vai ficar pra outra hora.
The game is over all fun but is hurt by bugs and inacesable areas leaving the player feeling needlessly incomplete. Some levels seemed to be a good idea but on higher difficulties are just anoying sutch as MAP22. Some of the later levels remain difficult but are more rewarding.